70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.
Seriously, you need to see more before you believe?
Posted in poetry, things The Cop loves, zen on 03/10/2010 11:07 am by karenShaktipat x 2: How many times do you need to be hit over the head with this?
Posted in ashtanga yoga, poetry on 03/08/2010 08:06 pm by karen“You come from the west, you see postures, you say ‘I want it.’ And then you take. All of this is taking, it is the western thinking. I want it I want it. If you don’t understand yoga because of that way of thinking, not my fault. Your fault.”
Romantic “Good Morning” text from The Cop
Posted in moment on 03/05/2010 10:27 am by karen“Your contraption is here.”
So obvious it makes me want to slap myself
Posted in ashtanga yoga, work on 03/05/2010 09:30 am by karenOkay, so I have been going along practicing practicing practicing. Every day. La la la. Saturdays off.
Simple.
Except I have this weird thing in my back. It’s been around for months and it hurts in back bends. Some days not so bad (only hurts in UD when I walk my hands in close), and some days pretty annoying (hurts in every up dog and any other back bend in the entire practice).
Quadratus lumborum, I thought. Ice. Heat. Stretch. Epsom salt baths. Arnica oil. Wintergreen oil. Capsaicin lotion. Mind control. Hypnagogic suggestion. Visualization.
Nothing.
Went to a chiropractor. He diagnosed a tight psoas. Okay.
Adjustments. Ultrasound. Heat. Ice. More adjustments.
Nothing.
Decided it doesn’t freaking matter WHAT it is, it just needs to go away.
Practice. Stretching on the chair, the bed, the couch, the kitchen counter, the office. Tightened bandhas, loosened bandhas. Breathed deeper, breathed more lightly. More raw food, more grains, add some dairy, subtract dairy, ditch soy, add hemp, grow suspicious of nightshades, consider dropping — once and for all — my Tootsie Pop habit.
Damn! Still here.
Okay, so here I am sitting in the office. It’s Friday, so I have on jeans and clogs. Which means I can kick off the clogs and sit cross legged in my chair.
What do I feel? A pully-stretchy feeling in *exactly* that spot. “Oh, that feels good,” I think, and then it hits me: I do not sit cross legged in my chair all day every day any more because I now wear skirts and high heels every day. (Stupid high, by the way — because my shoe aesthetic is in direct conflict with my foot health.) Over the past 6 months, it’s been more and more skirts and higher and higher heels.
Duh!
I believe I will be shopping for some pants and flat shoes this weekend. I need to sit the right way for a week and see if it corrects this back krink.
***
The experiment will be thrown off by one variable that’ll get tossed into the mix as soon as it gets delivered to the house and The Cop can install it:
More romance
Posted in moment on 02/25/2010 06:26 am by karen“You’re not a hippie. You’re esoteric. At least that’s what I tell my coworkers.”
Romantic Words from The Cop
Posted in moment on 02/24/2010 10:25 pm by karen“You’re going to be a handful when you’re senile.”
Super Bowl
Posted in moment on 02/07/2010 05:40 pm by karenThe Cop and I are watching the Super Bowl. A commercial about the stages of a man’s life. Amusing. At the end they announce Dove Soap for Men.
“Karen!” The Cop bellows, “Have I been using WOMEN’S SOAP?!?!”
Dude
Posted in ashtanga yoga, dog!, things i do to myself on 02/04/2010 10:05 am by karenChatting online with Liz and Sonya the other day and somehow the topic turned to my love (adoration, more accurately) of stoner stuff. Dude, where’s my car? Sweet! Obviously I cannot act upon my love of all things stoner (Officer Husband’s career would certainly suffer if he had a stoner wife), but I did indulge myself a bit this morning by practicing to a Grateful Dead soundtrack. Wheeee! Seriously, if you want happy happy energy, practice to the Dead. Next social event with The Cop & his colleagues, I’ll be the chick wearing tie dye!
In a weird twist of (perhaps practice-induced) mental flexibility, I’ve “allowed myself” (yeah, yeah, red flag, I know) to gain almost 5 pounds. This was an intuitive move — clear of intent but nebulous of purpose — and I’m really enjoying it (aside from very infrequent flashes of “I’ve let myself go!” panic). So yes, I am enjoying it physically — feeling strong and robust and energetic, and really REALLY resilient — though occasionally feeling uncomfortable in my mind. What’s breaking the tie between body and mind is the fact that the extra weight seems to be oiling the backbends quite dramatically.
My back is supple in a way that I’ve never experienced before. Perhaps my deeply held, brittle self-discipline re: body size affects physical flexibility? Does this rise to the level of a DUH! observation? Or is it woo woo mysticism? I don’t know! I can’t distinguish between the utterly obvious and crazy delusion because I’m just a hippie!
And here’s The Dude with his new stuffed elephant toy.
More chips o’ wisdom
Posted in things i like, zen on 01/19/2010 03:11 pm by karenWhy is it difficult to practice? We face a lot of pressure in this world to go fast, and we’ve become very complicated. We have to make our minds simple, present, attentive. If we don’t make our minds simple, it’s very difficult to pay attention to what we’re doing.
I read about an experiment that was done on dogs. I hesitate to talk about it because we want to protect animals from research, but it leads to an interesting point you may have discovered in your own practice. They kept young dogs in cages until they were very, very hungry, then put some food on one end of a special cage. Between the dogs and the food was a metal grid. When the dogs tried to reach the food they received a fairly strong electrical shock. After a couple of times the dogs would not cross the grid even when there was no electricity. Even if the dogs were starving they wouldn’t try it, and they would jump off if the researchers put them on the grid.
Then the researchers went a step further and found the only way to get rid of that conditioning was to hold the dogs on the grid when there was no shock. The dogs didn’t learn very quickly. Each dog went through everything it went through when it was shocked – trembling, screeching, urinating, completely losing control. But after it had gone through this whole reaction the dog would realize there was no more shock, and then it could cross the grid.
This has relevance to us because our karmic conditioning is the same. We’ve conditioned ourselves to react to certain situations. To get free of that conditioning we have to put ourselves into the situation and stay there while we go through all the trembling and sweating and urination in our pants, until we realize there is no shock in the grid. Nothing is really going on there. In my experience the tendrils of karma are very deep. Dharma Master Ji Kwang Dae Poep Sa Nim says, “Your karma seems really heavy. But when you finally take it off, it’s just like a thin piece of paper.” You have to be willing to practice with your whole body and mind to digest it, to de-condition it, and to see very clearly what is there and what isn’t there. Then even a shock won’t affect you.
[My Gift grew up answering the question "What would Dae Bong do?" Hilarious when applied to schoolyard dramas and high school hijinks. Still, it's never steered us wrong.]